Subject: RFID Industry Summons Lap Dogs to Squelch
Spychips Expose
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 21:52:01 -0500
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2005
RFID INDUSTRY SUMMONS LAP DOGS TO SQUELCH SPYCHIPS EXPOSE
Panicked Proponents Resort to Half Truths, Outright Lies
What do you say you're caught red-handed planning to track
people with
RFID when you've promised you never would? If you're a global
corporation with millions of dollars invested in the technology,
you
call in your chips -- er, favors. RFID industry mouthpieces AIM
Global
and RFID Journal have both heeded the call of their advertisers
and
supporters, nipping at the heels of the new book Spychips: How
Major
Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with
RFID.
Even start-up companies have tried to join the pack with
critiques of
their own.
"The companies behind the RFID industry must have thought
they were
calling out their attack dogs, but they apparently called their
lap dogs
by mistake" says Spychips co-author Katherine Albrecht.
"Their attempts
to criticize our book are toothless and feeble. In fact, they're
using
half-truths and outright lies to try to deflect from the real
issues."
She points to several statements by RFID Journal's Mark Roberti
as
examples. In his review of the book he claims the authors
"want a
complete and total ban on the use of RFID for all consumer
applications."
"That's absolute nonsense," says Albrecht,
"Perhaps Mr. Roberti didn't
read our book. We make it very clear that the only appropriate
role for
RFID legislation is to require companies to tell us when
products
contain RFID tags so we can make our own decisions about whether
or not
to buy them. We have never called for a ban on RFID."
The rest of Roberti's critique is equally flawed. Albrecht's
rebuttal to
his review is posted on the Spychips website at:
http://www.spychips.com/book/roberti-rebuttal.html.
Spychips co-author Liz McIntyre takes on AIM Global's review of
the
book. "AIM Global sinks its gums into Spychips, shaking it
almost
imperceptibly from side to side before collapsing into agreement
with
us," she writes.
AIM admits the patents revealed in the book are "more than
a little
disquieting," and that "the book does contain some
valid concerns and
highlights some of the more outlandish claims made by RFID
proponents."
However, AIM's anonymous reviewer deflects the blame for these
worrisome
ideas away from IBM, Procter & Gamble, and NCR where they
belong and
attributes them to unnamed "marketers."
Among these more "outlandish claims" and
"disquieting proposals" are
IBM's patent pending "Identification and Tracking of
Persons Using
RFID-Tagged Items," Procter & Gamble's patent pending
"Systems and
Methods for Tracking Consumers in a Store Environment," and
NCR's
patented "Automated Monitoring of Activity of Shoppers in a
Market,"
McIntyre notes.
"People can see through the industry's attempts at damage
control and
recognize them as spin," McIntyre observes. "When the
industry expends
this much energy trying to squelch a book, it's clear they're
afraid,
and, frankly, they should be. They can't squirm out of the truth
this
time. We've caught them with their own words, and it's all
footnoted and
documented."
McIntyre has posted her rebuttal to AIM Global's review at:
http://www.spychips.com/book/aim-rebuttal.html.
When asked whether they'll be entertaining other rebuttal
opportunities,
the authors laugh, "We hate to turn down any opportunity to
shame the
opposition, but our editors remind us that we have more
important tasks
at hand. Besides, we've already done a thorough job addressing
just
about every issue the industry could lob our way."
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track
your Every
Move with RFID is the winner of the Lysander Spooner Award for
Advancing
the Literature of Liberty. Authored by Harvard doctoral
researcher
Katherine Albrecht and former bank examiner Liz McIntyre, the
book is
meticulously researched, drawing on patent documents, corporate
source
materials, conference proceedings, and firsthand interviews to
paint a
convincing -- and frightening -- picture of the threat posed by
RFID.
Despite its hundreds of footnotes and academic-level accuracy,
the book
remains lively and readable, according to critics, who have
called it a
"techno-thriller" and "a masterpiece of
technocriticism."
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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Katherine Albrecht (kma@spychips.com) 877-287-5854
Liz McIntyre (liz@spychips.com) 877-287-5854
CASPIAN Consumer Privacy
www.spychips.com // www.nocards.org
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